1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to a data storage subsystem for use with a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention provides an apparatus and method for instant copy of data by writing new data to an additional physical storage area.
2. Description of Related Art
In computer systems and data storage subsystems, one problem is performing a data file copy operation in a manner that minimizes the use of processing resources and data storage memory. Previously, data files were copied in their entirety by the processor, such that two exact copies of the selected data file were resident in the data storage memory. This operation consumed twice the amount of memory for the storage of two identical copies of the data file. Additionally, this operation required the intervention of the processor to effect the copy of the original data file.
A data file snapshot copy is an improvement over this type of copy process. This snapshot copy process includes a dynamically mapped virtual data storage subsystem. This subsystem stores data files received from a processor in back-end data storage devices by mapping the processor assigned data file identifier to a logical address that identifies the physical storage location of the data. This dynamically mapped virtual data storage subsystem performs a copy of a data file by creating a duplicate data file pointer to a data file identifier in a mapping table to reference the original data file. In this dynamically mapped virtual data storage subsystem, the data files are referred to as a collection of xe2x80x9cvirtual tracksxe2x80x9d and each data file is identified by unique virtual track addresses (VTAs). The use of a mapping table provides the opportunity to replace the process of copying the entirety of a data file in the data storage devices with a process that manipulates the contents of the mapping table. A data file appears to have been copied if the name used to identify the original data file and the name used to identify the copy data file are both mapped to the same physical data storage location.
This mechanism enables the processor to access the data file via two virtual track addresses while only a single physical copy of the data file resides on the back-end data storage devices in the data storage subsystem. This process minimizes the time required to execute the copy operation and the amount of memory used since the copy operation is carried out by creating a new pointer to the original data file and does not require any copying of the data file itself.
One implementation of the snapshot copy process provides a two-table approach. One table has table entries for each virtual device track pointing to another table containing the physical track location for the entry. Each physical track table entry identifies the number of virtual track entries that point to this entry by use of a reference count mechanism. Each virtual track entry that points to the physical track is called a xe2x80x9creference.xe2x80x9d The reference count increments when a new virtual track table entry pointer points to this physical entry (e.g. snap) and the reference count decrements when a virtual track table entry pointer is removed (e.g. update source after a snap). When a reference count is zero, then that physical track can be deleted from the back-end since it is known that there are no references to the physical track.
System administrators are beginning to realize that xe2x80x9cpoint in timexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cinstantxe2x80x9d copies of data are extremely useful. However, the system administrator has to specifically plan for and request execution of these copies at the host level, such as setting up mirrored volumes or using the snapshot commands available in virtual mapping subsystems.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method to support dynamically changeable virtual mapping schemes in a data processing system. Processing of data unit requirements in the present invention is separated from the selection of which storage subsystems to use for storage by using a storage methodologies inventory. A stored data management subsystem contains one or more hosts. A plurality of data storage elements is functionally coupled to the one or more hosts. The plurality of data storage elements is organized using a plurality of layers of mapping tables. The plurality of layers of mapping tables provides unique identification of location of the data such that individual data entries in a mapping table is variable and self-defining with respect to the amount of data managed.
In addition, various instant copy mechanisms are provided for copying data upon receiving a write operation to either original or to copy data. The instant copy mechanisms may be selected based on the type of mapping originally used to store the data that is to be copied. Other features and advantages of the present invention will be described in, or will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.